## Facts

- Fourteen Gloucester, Massachusetts seamen sued maritime insurers that covered roughly 70–75% of the local fishing fleet.
- The insurers required vessel owners to submit post-trip “settlement sheets” listing each crew member.
- The insurers’ owner reviewed the sheets to identify certain seamen labeled as creating a “special risk of loss.”
- When such seamen were identified, the insurers demanded substantially higher premiums from vessel owners, sometimes thousands of dollars more, if those seamen were employed.
- The district court found the practice caused the targeted seamen substantial difficulty obtaining work.
- The district court found eight plaintiffs were designated “high-risk” not for risk-based reasons, but because they had pursued personal-injury claims against the insurers to judgment rather than settling.
- The settlement-sheet practice began after prior litigation had barred the insurers from excluding specific seamen by endorsement.

## Issues

1. Whether federal maritime law recognizes a claim for intentional interference with seamen’s employment relations, using Restatement (First) of Torts § 766 as the governing standard.
2. Whether the insurers’ conduct was privileged or justified as legitimate underwriting and risk management.
3. Whether the district court’s injunction was impermissibly broad in restricting future premium changes for the eight prevailing seamen and restricting use of settlement sheets.

## Decision

- The First Circuit affirmed the finding that the insurers were liable to eight seamen for intentional interference with employment relations under § 766 as incorporated into federal maritime law.
- The court rejected the insurers’ privilege defense where the “high-risk” labels and premium surcharges were found retaliatory rather than actuarially grounded.
- The court approved injunctive relief in general but modified it to avoid categorical limits that would unduly constrain legitimate underwriting, including absolute prohibitions on premium increases and broad limits on requiring settlement sheets.

## Legal Principles

- Federal courts in admiralty may fashion federal maritime common law by adopting generally accepted tort standards, including Restatement (First) of Torts § 766.
- Under § 766, one is liable for intentionally and improperly interfering with another’s contractual or prospective employment relations by inducing a third party not to employ or retain the person, when done without privilege.
- An insurer’s ordinary interest in underwriting does not justify premium practices used to retaliate against seamen for pursuing personal-injury claims.
- Injunctions in maritime tort cases must be tailored to stop unlawful interference while preserving room for bona fide, non-retaliatory underwriting and information-gathering.

## Conclusion

The First Circuit held that maritime insurers with substantial market share may be liable in admiralty for intentionally interfering with seamen’s employment by using premium surcharges as retaliatory blacklisting, and it affirmed damages and equitable relief while narrowing an injunction that swept beyond preventing retaliation into restricting legitimate underwriting.


Pino v. Prot. Mar. Ins. Co., 599 F.2d 10 (1st Cir. 1979)